I can also argue there is curve aim; it's when you do aim in the process of doing curvy patterns. Not to be confused with flow aim, which can contain curve aim but also not. As ridiculous of a thing I just made up, it's as made up as do "snap" and "flow" aim. Things "exist" simply because people objectify and define them. Are they a useful metric? That is an entirely different debate.
About your flow chart. Everything is fine until "did I loose my focus" part. You need focus to be able to read, and knowing how to read better is not going to give you better focus. Good rest and determination does.
-----------
Now replying to stuff after
Also the pattern is related to "flow" aim because of the flowing motion the cursor appears to do regardless of how the pattern is being read.
Knowing whether to go in a circle or snap in a square is not a reading problem. It's more of a muscle memory/knowing what to do problem. Similar to the problem of knowing how to hit the color you want to hit in taiko without messing keys up. There is no reading issue when doing a square if you recognize and acknowledge all four circles a reaction time's worth before aiming. Now, aiming to hit a square in a circle is pretty hard due to the short duration the cursor spends on top of each circle if not snapping, and due to the precision required during the continuous movement in the perpendicular direction.Almost wrote:
A square is a very basic pattern that we can all recognize immediately upon seeing it. There is no issue here in knowing what to do. Even a monkey could look at it and know what to do. But when many newer players try to execute this pattern, they tend to either draw some awkward looking circle, slightly miss one of the circles or forget about one of the circles altogether. Is that a problem with aim then? Well if you were to give the same player each jump individually (A -> B, B -> C, C -> D), they would tend to be able to hit it no problem. It's only when the circles are put into that sort of shape do problems arise. Then where do does the problem lie? In the reading!!! It doesn't matter if you know what to do if you can't actually do it. It's like understanding a language but not being able to speak it yourself.
About your flow chart. Everything is fine until "did I loose my focus" part. You need focus to be able to read, and knowing how to read better is not going to give you better focus. Good rest and determination does.
-----------
Now replying to stuff after
This is so misleading. Changing the how you read something does not make you read better over all. It's going to help you read the pattern better, but it does not improve your capacity to process visual complexity in unit time. In other words, your reading ability remains the same.Almost wrote:
The pattern in Figure 1 is is not a stream but is made up of 1/2 notes. I don't know what people call this pattern but it's a very common one. There are 2 methods of playing this pattern; by trying to match the velocity of your cursor to the circles or by looking at each circle within the chain directly as you're about to hit it. Many new players tend to do the first method as it's the least energy consuming method however, it's also the most inconsistent method of the two by far. The second method can be done with a more snappy or flowy motion, the choice is up to whoever is playing it but both yield the same levels of consistency. We'll be looking at flow aim as that's what we're talking about.
Now to an outside observer, both methods will yield the same movement pattern, a flowy aim. However, the goal of both methods is completely different. In the first method, the player's goal is to move their cursor at a velocity to match the spacing and timing of the pattern. The second player however is purely aiming at moving their cursor on top of the circle that needs to be hit next. The end result of the second method just happens to be that of a (somewhat) constant rate of velocity. The same methods can also be applied to streams (albeit it's not 100% exactly the same but pretty close).
Now onto our conundrum, if you tell a player floundering around on the first method to try out the second method, they will see instant significant improvements to their 'flow aim'. In reality, all they did was improve their reading skills.
Also the pattern is related to "flow" aim because of the flowing motion the cursor appears to do regardless of how the pattern is being read.
I agree. They should get the "play moar" treatment. Then after some time they should be told to train snap and flow aim.Almost wrote:
For any new players coming into the game not knowing anything, being told to practice specifically to train snap and flow aim is:
a) meaningless
b) hard to really understand how
c) misleading
Honestly, there is some truth in this, but not really. Let's just say training aiming comes packaged with learning how to read as well. There is some preliminary reading abilities the player needs to have to be able to do basic patterns, yes. But beyond that, reading low AR, reading convoluted overlaps, that is what we refer to actual reading. The reading you are referring is learned with in parallel with other skills and cannot be easily taken standalone. When all preliminary reading abilities are perfected, all you can talk about is "snap" and "flow" aim because those aiming aspects can be developed further than what you are going to get out of perfecting preliminary reading.Almost wrote:
I've already gone over that it's reading skills not aim skills that are involved in making snap and flow movements. Every single argument made so far for there actually being snap and flow aim skills is 'that we move our cursor in that manner therefore skill'. At the same time, not a single person has questioned my reasoning for those movements looking the way they are and how reading was the driver behind those specific movement patterns.
Basically, you can train those 'skills' but technically you aren't actually training any movement pattern, you're training reading which leads to those 'skills'. It's completely misleading to tell people to train a skill with the name 'aim' attached to it when in reality you're simply training a reading skill. Am I the only one that thinks that's completely bonkers??